Two months in office and the media sours on New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. Why? de Blasio did not anticipate that a Democratic Party Governor of a solid blue state would put cutting taxes for the rich ahead of funding universal pre-K in New York City.
Summary - Reader Comments - Big Lie about Mayor Bill de Blasio and Charters; Ukraine; Disgraceful Rejection of Debo Adegbile; Salt of the Earth - Sixty Years and Still So Vibrant; Attack on Public Schools; Member-to-Member Harassment; NAFTA Scorecard; Vermont Public Bank;
Women in Labor History; 25th Anniversary of the Web; Today in History - Senate Approves Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
The question before the Mayor is whether he will continue to fund a dual school system–one sector able to choose the students it wants–and the other sector serving all. He is trying to have it both ways, and it doesn’t work. He gave the charter lobby almost everything it wanted, and they still came after him as if he had given them nothing at all.
An appeals court has decided that the School Board wrongly terminated more than 7,000 teachers after Hurricane Katrina. Those teachers were not given due process, and many teachers had the right to be rehired as jobs opened up in the first years after the storm, the court said in a unanimous opinion.
From Silicon Valley, the Rocketship chain of charter schools is hoping to expand across the country. It’s backed by some of the biggest names in the tech world and claims high test scores. But what are these schools preparing kids for? And what are the real costs of Rocketship's low-cost model?
Definitely go out and buy Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to Americas Public Schools by Diane Ravitch. Reign of Error lays out step by step the relentless thirty year drive to either centralize the education of the young - on one hand - or divest it entirely into privatized hands on the other. Finally, the two sides have joined forces on a strategy that simultaneously does both. (Deborah Meier)
'Reforming' schools by giving tax money to corporations is a distraction from the system's real problems - poverty and racial segregation.
Kelly, the district’s largest school, also took the biggest budget hit for what CPS called a projected enrollment drop of 200-250 students, though CPS still considers it overcrowded as well. The school has laid off 23 teachers, 10 support staff and will also lose seven security guards, as well.“Our enrollment is supposedly down, which is why they explained the $4 million in cuts, but apparently we need new schools,” said Carolyn Brown, one of the teacher representatives.
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